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Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance

Head of the Rosselkhoznadzor Meets Russian Meat Producers and Importers

A round-table meeting was held within the framework of a dialogue between the Rosselkhoznadzor and associations and communities of domestic importers, processors and producers of products under the Rosselkhoznadzor surveillance. The meeting focused on issues connected with implementation of the Agreement on Veterinary and Sanitary Measures (on 1 July 2010) adopted by the Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasian Economic Community on 11 December 2009.

Therefore, information on new procedures used for completing accompanying veterinary documents will be placed on the Rosselkhoznadzor web-site in the next few days, as Deputy Head of the Rosselkhoznadzor, Chief Veterinary Officer Nikolay Vlasov specifies.

Besides, the earlier adopted lists of plants involved in the turnover of the controlled products will remain valid till 1 January 2011, as he noted. It was decided to establish a common form of accompanying veterinary documents for the whole territory of the Customs Union; however old-form documents will be used together with the new ones till the end of the current year. A corresponding package of documents is now being harmonized, and when signed, it will be immediately placed in a new section on the Rosselkhoznadzor site.

Automated system of the state veterinary surveillance “Argus” developed by the Rosselkhoznadzor will operate on the whole territory of the Union. Establishment of a reliable system aimed at tracing consignments under surveillance is of special significance when working under new conditions. Checkpoints will further specialize in products subject to state veterinary surveillance, at the same time their number will be reduced and laboratory equipment will be updated.

It is necessary to reduce the time limit required for imported products under surveillance to go through customs control and will provide high safety level, as Head of the Rosselkhoznadzor Sergey Dankvert specified. He dwelled on importance of monitoring the products under the Rosselkhoznadzor surveillance for safety.

Frequency of monitoring tests may be intentionally changed depending on risk factors and degrees, thus, ensuring high efficiency of the whole system. When it came to reasons for reforming the Rosselkhoznadzor Administration for Moscow and the Moskovskaya Oblast and consequences of this reform for business, Sergey Dankvert explained that the main reasons for reforming the Administration were to control corrupt practices in the administration, optimize logistic routes for consignments under surveillance, reduce an excessive number of temporary storage warehouses, carry out staff reduction and improve management structure.

If it is reasonable to retain some temporary storage warehouses, the Rosselkhoznadzor management is ready to defer to the opinion of Russian importers of the products under surveillance. A new list of temporary storage warehouses will have been approved by the end of the first ten-day period of August 2010, when the Commission on Liquidation of Administration for Moscow and the Moskovskaya Oblast finishes its work.

As for resuming export of poultry meat from the USA to the Russian Federation, Sergey Dankvert noted that this issue is now being negotiated between the Rospotrebnadzor and authorized American organizations; the American party is ready to disinfect poultry meat not with chlorine-containing solutions but with other substances. Such substances shall be officially tested and registered in Russia. Sergey Dankvert also noted that most American poultry processing plants do not comply with the Russian legislation standards.

As for export of meat products from Brazil, Sergey Dankvert dwelled on recent staff changes in the administration of the National Veterinary Services of Brazil. Since there is no assurance that new administration truly understands the necessity to comply with all Russian export norms and requirements, the Rosselkhoznadzor has made a decision to apply more intensive safety monitoring to controlled Brazilian products coming to the Russian market. A new inspection of German plants gave cause for some concern. As for export of Chinese meat products, Sergey Dankvert explained that this issue will be discussed during the forthcoming visit to Russia of a representative delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture of China. However, taking into account peculiarities of the agro-industrial complex of the country, now it is possible to approve export only from a few plants that have been successfully inspected by the Rosselkhoznadzor specialists.

As for export of controlled products from other countries, Sergey Dankvert emphasized the necessity to enhance control of products exported from Lithuania and excluded possibility to start import from Mexico.